Hyperpotamus

It was only after having suffered a 48 hour workshift as a runner at the wrong electronic music festival, being bitten by hordes of African jellyfish on the Spanish coast and later driven home by a shaky ex-inmate, that the distress and sheer extremity of my physical condition allowed me to encounter my epiphany: make music without instruments…

I quickly recorded myself improvising and only after having pressed the Stop button did I realize this was the best music I had ever done. Soon, I bought myself a loop pedal and started to rehearse my new found vocal compositions in Madrid’s metro station of Tribunal. After that came the gigs, the album, the festivals…

Let’s quickly fast forward to three years later. A guy who calls himself Vincent Moon gets in touch and dares me to repeat the venture while roaming the streets of Barcelona, something to which I was initially reluctant to do, since the technical issues aroused by having to perform while walking made it look impossible. But it was this challenge, as well as the extremely tight deadline imposed (thanks Vincent…), that made me tick… Being used to my static food pedal connected to a PA system, I had to improvise and come up with a mobile setup of some sort. In came the handheld delay pedal, the cheap battery-operated amp and the microphone, all connected via my backpack: et voilá, the 21st century one man band.

The end result was something I had never done or experienced before. Basically, what you see is me losing my second virginity to Hyperpotamus, live, on camera, in the streets of Barcelona.

text by Jorge Ramirez-Escudero (aka Hyperpotamus)